J's Musings

Important Events: The first most important event of their lives was when they got a call up for Margot (Anne’s sister) to go work in Germany on ‘July 5’. This forces them to shift to the annex before they originally planned to. It brings a drastic change in the life of Anne and her family, because the annex was a tiny room hidden deep in her father’s office, behind warehouses and staircases. They are suddenly completely living in each other’s company, which becomes over-whelming over time. Anne’s mother keeps comparing her and Margot, which leads to many intense arguments. This leads to her growing closer to her father, but declining her mother and sister even more. Her mother seems more annoyed day by day, even more as their new roommates seem to want to use everything the Franks have to offer, but not bring out their own things. The families are constantly struggling with the pressure of being good and relaxed, the parents even more, as they have to raise their kids well in the severe situations of the time and protect them. The second most important event was when Anne got her diary, this was probably the next most important thing, as she was finally able to get things ‘off her chest’ as she herself said. This made an impact on the whole family because Anne finally had time to reflect on what she felt and thought, causing her to have clearer ideas of what her relation with the whole family was. This created a rift between her and her mother, but closeness between her and her father. She often writes about how her family treats her compared to her sister, and keeps pondering over it for a longer period of time. This often makes her go deeper into her mother and sister’s behavior, which leads to her having misconceptions about their intentions. This causes obvious problems between them. That is how her getting a diary affects the entire family in my sense.

Conflicts and Challenges: Of all the troubles the residents of the annex face, their daily hardships may have won 1^st place, if they weren’t afraid of discovery. So, standing proud on 2^nd place their daily hardships are necessarily the most notorious of regular and concrete troubles, in my opinion. Coping with these troubles may or may not have been a very big deal, depending on the character. Things like, taking a bath in an office or kitchen, not being able to get the number of groceries regular citizens were entitled to because they were in hiding, and having to stay quiet and cramped all day long were the most common problems that all of them faced. Some others were more subjective, like putting up with an old dentist who held others in very low to none at all or having the other family use your things instead of their own. Just like everyone had different struggles, they also had varying ways of coping with them. Anne wrote in her diary, Mr. Dussel likes to try and go over a regular routine to make himself feel secure and so on. The mothers try to keep the atmosphere as regular and homely as possible (it doesn’t work sometime though) 🙂 and the fathers try to act as though they are not having a crazy crisis almost every other day. I think this is their coping method because acting as though life is normal often helps people ignore the fact that it’s well, not okay. 🙂

The dynamics between two characters in the annex – Anne and her mother: Anne and her mother were, I may say in the softest way, not the best of mother and daughter. True, there was a certain chemistry, but it lacked, lacked something the characters may or may not grow into as the story evolves. That would be empathy and understanding towards each-other’s emotions and behaviours. They truly love each other and care for one another too, but as a growing girl, Anne naturally has a sense of loneliness and not being understood. While her mother is trying to make do with what she has, two growing daughters that make her see red with their tantrums almost every minute. Although without these issues (like before moving to the annex) they seemed to have a really good relation. So, while the situations affect their relation on an outer level, I think the mother and daughter have a deep relation.

The Themes: While there are various themes that have been explored in the book, I would like to point out a less obvious theme, that is of adaptation. Taking Anne herself as an example, earlier, a chatty and fidgety child by nature. Although after her move to the annex she ends up having more control over herself and stays still/quiet for almost hours at an end. This is not because she has changed, but because the circumstances are so, kind of like her mother changed. While her mother didn’t adapt, she did change significantly based of whatever context we have been given about her older personality. She was probably a much softer mother who never let her love waver, but while living in the annex she definitely turned a little sterner. This was because she hoped that her children would still turn out to be well behaved despite all the problems they had to face at a young age. Next is the importance of always letting your thoughts out and listening to other’s when they share theirs. Like when Anne has slight depression because nobody speaks to her, she confides in her diary, but with no one to listen to her, she becomes wilder and sadder by the day. Only if her father would have listened to her she would have turned out to be the girl everyone wanted. Or maybe something completely different, but definitely better than what she was. This somewhere encouraged me to be even more confident about sharing my feelings.

[Previously an assignment]

By,

Janx 🙂